


Empty Vessel

by The Hunters Angel (ToriCeratops)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood, Cutting, Depression, M/M, Self Harm, Severe Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:49:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToriCeratops/pseuds/The%20Hunters%20Angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas feels so empty without his grace - lost and incomplete.  He finds quite by accident, something that reminds him his skin is still his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Vessel

**Author's Note:**

> Done for a prompt on my [tumblr. ](http://the-hunters-angel.tumblr.com)   
> This is 3000 words of depression, please do not read if that may bother you.

If Cas thought the emptiness and the guilt was overwhelming in the past two years, he's got no idea how he's still standing now. Every movement he makes is purposeful, calculated. Without the ability to fly off at a moments notice everything is suddenly more terrifying – more deadly. His whole body feels like it doesn't fit, like its too loose and he's constantly tugging it up by the waist every time he takes a step.

His vessel – no, his body, wholly his and completely Castiel – is even loosing weight. It's certain to be from the fact that he hardly ever eats, despite how much food Dean insists on putting in front of him every night. For some reason, he just can't bring himself to do it. He gets hungry yes – at times to the point of painfully starving – but something in him denies himself the comfort of food, the nutrients he knows his body needs and the relief it would bring.

For the first couple of days, he slept. No dreams, no nightmares, no tossing and turning. He would wake for a few hours then fall onto Dean's bed in a comatose state.

After the first week though, the nightmares came.

Sleep is near impossible after that. Whenever he would close his eyes he hears the screams of his brothers and sisters, the cries of pain and wails of sorrow. The one that kills him though, that rips another piece of him apart and kills him just that much more slowly – is when they all go silent all at once.

Cas puts on a good show. He does eat, enough to keep the others sated. He helps, and he hunts, and he smiles when he thinks he should, acts concerned towards those that he needs to feel sorrow for, and he lets Dean take care of him when the other man insists. The only thing keeping him tethered to this world – despite how empty and pointless it seems ninety percent of the time – is the thin, fragile string connecting him to Dean. Dean needs him, and he knows he needs Dean. It's all that keeps him from taking the easy way out.

So he pushes through.

The moment that almost breaks him though, comes quite unexpectedly.

As an angel he saw so much more than he can as a man. He could see the light of people's souls, watch it rise and fall with their moods – shining through even the darkest of nights when there was just a glimmer of hope. When he first became human he was devastated not to be able to see that side of humanity any longer, to no longer be able to feel the warmth that comes with such a intimate look at a person. He never got over the emptiness that now surrounds Dean every day.

One evening, many months after the fall - he's not even keeping up with the passage of time any longer – he's sitting against the head board, staring at absolutely nothing when Dean comes in laughing brightly. He doesn't look immediately, remembering a time in days past when Dean would laugh and joke and explain the concept to him. It makes him smile, a bit of a sad smile but honest none the less. When he finally looks down from his distant gazing at the ceiling though, all he sees is Dean, no soul, no brightly shining light that makes him feel as if everything is going to be okay no matter what. He knows its still there, he knows it's still Dean and everything he has ever been, ever proven to Cas over and over again what he _can be_ it still kills him that he can not see it, can no longer feel it's over whelming presence.

Standing up, readjusting his way too big henly and tightening the drawstrings around his ever shrinking waistline he quietly makes his way toward the bathroom. Dean tries to stop him, offering gentle kisses and warm touches but Cas just makes an excuse, tells him he needs a shower or something. He doesn't need to see Dean's expression to know the man is concerned – he's always concerned. But thankfully, he lets it go for now. He seems to have gotten exceptionally good at knowing when to push and when to just let go.

Thirty minutes later, Cas is finally turning off the boiling hot water, having tried so very hard to make it as hot as he could stand and never even really flinching. His skin is red and raw when he steps into the cold air and he barely even notices the temperature change. When he looks into the mirror his eyes are dull, cheeks shallow and chin covered in facial hair that he bemoans shaving every time it gets like this. He can't even bring himself to smile at the memory of the first time Dean taught him the best techniques to do this – a warm body pressed against his, strong arms guiding him, quiet, graveled chuckles when he asked stupid questions, chapped lips against his smooth, freshly shaven skin – they're all just memories, and none of them even make him feel anything.

It's like the sudden silence all over again.

It's too much.

He's not even half way through when he lets out a quiet sob and his hand starts to shake. Before he can drop the razor a sharp stinging pain shoots through his skin. The tiny blade sliced through him and the shaving cream dripping down the cut makes him flinch.

Once the clatter of plastic dropping into the sink dissipates the only sound in the room is the slow and steady build of his broken, bitter laughter. Here, standing in the tiny bathroom with his own, very human blood slowly dripping into the porcelain below him, he feels something – anything - for the first time in ages. It hurts, and it stings, but it's _there._ The pain screams to be paid attention to, impossible to miss and he's unwilling to stop it. His hands are braced against the counter as he takes several deep breaths, trying to hold onto it, pleading with his body to continue to bleed. But it eventually stops, the drops quit coming and the sting subsides to a dull throb, fading into nothingness once again.

It's a passing moment, come and gone in the blink of an eye, but for now, it's more than enough. He knows he's still there, still existing despite how much he doubts the reality of that lately. So once he's finished he puts on a smile, not as fake as they have been as of late, and returns to Dean to offer and accept the touch and the love he's always holding out for Cas.

It lasts a few days, this knowledge of life beyond the emptiness. Everyone seems to accept this small little uptick in his mood, the more frequent genuine smiles, the willingness to participate in life in general.

He slides back down the rabbit hole again though, slowly but surely.

It's a few weeks before he starts to think about that evening, about how that one, tiny little nick had reminded him what it was like to feel, to have sensation in his nerves and charge in his flesh. This time, he decides to do it on purpose. Just a little cut, a little deeper, a little longer than the last one. He doesn't need much, he just needs to feel that sharp slap of _something_ one more time. Dean had fussed over the stupid nick on his chin so he finds an out of the way area, usually covered and barely seen. Just below his hip, on the side of his leg. He wears jeans every day and boxers when they're alone, and when the boxers are gone Dean is usually far too distracted by other pressing matters to pay attention to a tiny cut. So he slices, and he inhales deeply, smiling despite the pain.

It works.

It works for about the same amount of time it had the first time.

The next one is done on the other leg but only takes him through a few days. By the end of the week he feels more empty than he had ever thought he could before. So the fourth is deeper, leaves a more lasting mark and fills him with something for as long as he can still press his fingers to it and feel the jolt of pain.

By the time he has lost all sensations again Dean has started to notice that something is amiss. He doesn't say anything at first, just watching Cas more carefully, holding him closer, kissing him longer. Eventually he starts to question the severe mood swings, the conversations never getting very far before Cas finds a way to steer them elsewhere.

On an evening where Cas' smile is more than a false pretense, where hands are sliding along skin and lips dragging everywhere down his body, Dean finds the cuts, the most recent one still slightly scabbed over and slowly healing. “Cas...” Immediately Dean reaches for the lamp, clicking it to life and saying Cas' name with a quiet concern. “What happened?” His fingers dance along the lines – clean and straight and obviously made by something sharp over time.

“You remember running through the woods a few days ago? And I had to get new jeans because those were all torn up?” Cas grins, taking Dean's hand in his and pulling him forward and away from the offending patch of skin. “I think a branch or something caught me and it just, wasn't a big deal so I didn't really notice.” The shrug and the grin are forced, guilt slowly wrapping it's coils around his insides.

It's a lie that Dean accepts, though obviously with great reluctance. Lying like that, to Dean, to the man who has saved him time and time again and who he loves – at least, he remembers how to love on the good days – sends him through the worst spiral yet.

He waits until the bunker is empty, until the echoes of his footsteps are the only thing that rings through his ears and he is truly alone. The floor beneath his bare feet barely even registers as he walks slowly through the building and towards the bathroom. His shirt and jeans are tossed in the corner of Dean's room – for some reason he's never considered it his own – and he quietly shuts the door to the rest of the world.

For an amount of time he is completely un aware of he stares at his form in the mirror. Thin, pale, slightly shaking with hunger. The creature in front of him is pathetic, a pallid excuse for what he once was for everything he was once capable of. He should be disgusted, furious, guilty, angry, sad, any number of outrage of emotions should be staring back at him.

All he sees is an empty vessel.

The first cut is nothing. It's longer and he takes more time than ever before but all he gets for his trouble is a bleeding leg. The next one is shorter, but deeper, something from the slide of the blade through his flesh scratching at the surface of what he craves.

A dozen slices and a bathtub running red later and he's starting to feel the burn, finally slipping into the sensation of the sweet sting of the blade across his skin.

He's in no danger of bleeding out, but his already poor health combined with starving himself for days on end means that with what he's done he can barely even see straight. Heavy footfalls barely register to his ears and his voice cracks in protest when he realizes who it is.

“Dean. No.”

He's not sure the man could have heard it even if he was standing right next to him and he knows he would not have listened. The door flies open and he vaguely realizes Dean is now actually in the room with him. It's all so hazy, so unfocused and inconsequential. The blade he had broken out of the cheap razor is still held tightly between his thumb and forefinger, though he is shaking so bad now he's not sure he could even cut paper with it.

“Dean.” He weakly protests once more, as if asking him to leave will some how change the fact that his boyfriend just found him like this.

Cas' entire body is being lifted – far too easily - his hand suddenly empty while a curse flies through the room. He blinks and there's a fully clothed body behind him and water pouring down his front. Somehow Dean had slid in with him and is slowly cleaning every inch of Cas under the warm spray of the shower head, muttering, voice shaking with more fear and ache than Cas has heard in ages. “Cas. Cas, baby, don't do this. Please. Just stay awake, we'll patch you up okay? Come on.”

Just as his eyes drift closed, Cas feels the warmth from Dean behind him, the softness of his kisses on his neck and the sting of his fingers making sure each cut no longer runs red. “Please, we're gonna get you through this okay?”

Hours pass through nothingness.

He wakes in Dean's bed, dry and bandaged in a clean pair of boxers. Blinking to adjust to the light – despite how soft it is – the first thing he sees is Sam's back as he pulls the door shut on his way out. When he turns, he finds Dean sitting next to the bed, rather than on it with him. The fact that he has to look down and see it to know that Dean is holding his hand pulls the first sob from his throat since the first day he cut his chin shaving. It shakes him, all of him, everything he is and everything he has ever tried to be. “Dean, I'm so sorry. I wasn't trying to...”

“I know.” Dean cuts him off, nodding with his lips pressed tightly together. “I know, Cas. But it's still not good, it's not healthy, and we're gonna help you. I'm gonna help you through this okay?”

Cas can only nod and shifts slightly on the bed, hoping Dean will get the hint that he'd really like his company. Thankfully, he catches on quick and a moment later, Cas still laying on his back, Dean lays on his side next to him, carefully touching his fingers to the edges of Cas' fresh bandages. The bandages, on further inspection, go far lower than he had ever intended and he wonders just how long he had been in there alone, and how long he's been out for.

“I thought we agreed you would talk to me, Cas?” Dean's voice sounds broken, but like he's trying to hold back on his own pain for Cas' sake.

“I didn't have anything to talk about.” He furrows his brows, looking as the man next to him takes a deep, steadying breath.

“This is something to fucking talk about, Cas.”

“No. I mean...” Cas shakes his head but it only makes him dizzy, despite that he's laying down, so he presses the heel of his hands to his eyes. “I didn't mean I didn't think I should talk about it, I just... I didn't know what to say. I knew something was wrong – IS wrong- I just don't know what it is. I can't put words to it though and just saying 'I'm fucked up in the head' would be absolutely no news to anyone at this point.” Trying a guilty smile as he drops his hands, Cas looks towards Dean.

Dean presses a soft kiss to his temple. “Well you're talking now, so let's keep that up okay? Tell me what's going on, what you feel was bad enough to do this.”

“I don't.”

“What do you..”

“I mean I don't _feel_ , Dean. I don't feel the sunlight on my skin and feel warm, I don't see a person smile and feel happy for them, I don't hear laughter and want to join in because it just goes right through me. Until I started doing... this...” he gestures to his leg, “I was even starting to have to fake my smiles for you, for the one thing in all of creation that has ever meant more to me than anything else, I had to fake it. And that was killing me.” He reaches up and wipes a tear from Dean's cheek, his own lips trembling with the weight of his confession. “I am empty, Dean. I am tiny and insignificant and oh so frustratingly..”

“Human.” Dean finishes for him.

There's a bitterness to Dean's word that is not lost on Cas. He simply nods, averting his gaze and trying to shrink to an even smaller size than he already feels.

“Now you listen to me, Castiel.” A firm but gentle hand cups his face, guiding him back to make eye contact again. “Yes, you are human right now and it sucks believe me I know, I've been one my whole life. At times it sucks _ass_. But the title? The body? None of that changes who you are, that you are Cas, the one who pulled my sorry ass out of hell, who has fought by my side, who has _died_ for me and for the rest of humanity over and over again.” Dean starts to tremble, his lips shaking and his voice weary, “You are Cas, the one who, through all of the shit we have been through together, I love with everything I have.”

With that, Cas breaks. He clutches to Dean and turns into his open arms, burying his face in his chest and crying quietly. It's as if he's collapsing in on himself and the only thing keeping him together, in an excuse for one piece, is Dean's arms.

And Dean – Dean just holds him through it. He holds him tight like he always does, right there, warm and comforting and letting him cry and babble and spill out all of his pain and his fear and his sorrow. “We're going to get you through this baby, I promise.”

Cas _feels_ the drip of Dean's own tears on his forehead, warm and wet, and looks up, nodding with a grim smile. “I know.” He says, honestly.

He believes him.


End file.
